10 Questions With Jai Romeo On Uncut Android: He’s The CEO B*TCH

Many of you know Jai Romeo on twitter, a loose lipped, off the cuff guy who tells it like it is and has an amazing ability to produce high quality, sharp looking themes. Due to some technical issues and his work schedule he isn’t cranking the themes out the way he used to but he has started a new venture called Uncutandroid.com. We caught up with Jai who had enough time for these 10 questions:

2. How did you get started with Android and Theming?
I got into Android with the G1 when it first came out. I just had an interest in a Google phone, I’ve tried every Google and had Gmail since it first started beta and you actually needed invites.

Themeing, I didn’t start right away, I started themeing at cupcake, prior to that, I used other themers stuff. At first I started just by messing with themes I liked and changing their color, then football season hit, and I wanted a Giants theme. So playing with some things, I sat down and learned, learned Android, learned themeing and learned Photoshop. Moved on to making a USF Bulls theme and it just took off from their, another XDA member had made NFL clocks for all the teams, and Beagz (one of the absolute best people in the Android community), started making HTC IME keyboards to go along with the themes, did some widgets and basically helped teach me xml edits and .9’s.

3. Obviously you’ve got a great eye and great detail in your themes do you think thats why you were targeted with the NFL Themes?

Honestly, not to sound cocky, but yes. At the time, there were multiple themers making sports themes for Open Home, at first I was contacted to work for a company that was licensed, then they warned my of a C&D, thats when I pulled everything. Three months later I get served a C&D from CAPS. In all honesty, no other developer was close to my downloads. We had free NFL better keyboards with 100k+ downloads within a few months. The licensed themes sucked. I partially feel they wanted to take out a “threat” for competition, and also feel like they wanted to make an example. When I was warned of a C&D, I emailed the 6 other developers making like apps. None were contacted, as a matter of fact, only one was eventually contacted, and that was 7 months after I was given a C&D, or 10 months after I was warned, and COMPLIED!

4. What big theme projects do you have in the works?
Due to work schedule and my party habits, I’ve retired from doing rooted themes. My laptop had died so I no longer had linux, so I just set up my desktop to dual boot so I can finish taking my Flavored Ice series and bringing them to the theme engine. I really love the theme engine idea, no real worries of having to update so much. I also keep updating my ADW themes and l plan to make a few more after after the theme engine themes are complete. I recently released a free version of one of my ADW themes, and in 6 weeks it’s gained over 65k downloads.

Interview continues to after the break

5. Ok so how does a themer turn website/blog owner?
Good question, not really sure lol. The actual idea had came from me making comments on how I always see Android blogs looking for writers, and me replying that there wasn’t a chance in hell they’d let me speak me mind. As anyone that follows me on Twitter would know, I’m far from politically correct (PC), very sarcastic,explicit and a little vulgar. I’m like that in real life, I’m not going to clean up my act to share my opinion. A received a bunch of replies from followers that I should start a blog on my theme site. Decided, I’d make a new one.

6. What would you say was the reason you did uncutandroid.com

To give a voice to the Android Community, uncut, unfiltered and uncensored. I thing being PC is garbage, this is a chance for me or anyone else to speak freely, without moderation (to the extent of no slurs, no flaming). It’s just over a week old, but I’m seeing it give an unheard voice to the community. Advanced users to noobs, things they feel are harming the community, helping the community, and how we could help the community. Some things are purely rants. Uncensored app reviews are fun, when you can say what comes to mind, not walking on egg shells.

7. So just to clarify you don’t want an attack or rant site just more opinionated?

Exactly. It is not for attacking developers, but I will allow it to call out developers who are seemingly acting negatively towards their customers. I want a lot more than just a rant. I have allowed a few rants, but some of the articles that can be seen as rants are much more. They are informative and bring up some good issues. There are also some app reviews and will be more to comes.

8. So anyone can submit to your site? If I wanted to an article on why i think it blows to even remotely consider putting Bing on an Android device you would run it?

Anyone is free to contribute. If someone wants to be a regular contributor, I’ll let them. If they suck, of course they will loose that. I also post articles from email and encourage people to. I’ve received some very interesting articles. Some people have a negative feeling towards writing for sites, but when it’s open source news for our open source community, people have felt comfortable enough to participate.

You can describe it in the filthiest way possible of how it blows, what it blows and how often it blows, and I would post it without an issue. (btw, $h!t seems to be the common word used on the site, so much that I’ve named the sections using it 😉 )

9.Obviously there are all types of contributors. Have you turned anything down yet?

Not yet. I hope the site gets big enough to where I would have to start turning things down. Right now I am getting some help from a few other people to help handle the admin/editor role.

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